2017 Big Data 100: 40 Coolest Business Analytics Vendors

The total amount of digital data is forecast to explode from 16 zettabytes this year to 180 zettabytes by 2025. That includes data generated by IT systems in banking, retail and other industries; social media and other consumer activities; and the billions of networked devices being connected through the Internet of things.

Businesses today are trying to make sense of all this data in order to operate more efficiently, understand their customers' needs, and find any competitive advantage they can.

So it's no surprise spending for big data and business analytics technology and services is expected to grow almost 12 percent a year to $203 billion in 2020, according to market researcher IDC.

As part of the 2017 Big Data 100, we've put together a list of 40 companies that solution providers should be aware of, offering everything from simple-to-use reporting and visualization tools to highly sophisticated software for tackling the most complex data analysis problems.